Heartwood
by what evil lurks
Summary: Daryl makes a memorial for Merle in his own fashion. But it seems everyone has an opinion of Merle they want to add.
1. Chapter 1

**Heartwood**

Seemed like nearly every time he came through the clearing someone else had added a comment to Merle's tree.

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Daryl had buried Merle in the woods. He doubted Merle gave much of a damn where his sorry carcass ended up; despite Merle's physicality, really his body had just been the shell that had carried him, and briefly carried something else, around. But despite that, Daryl knew he'd have had plenty to say if Daryl buried him in the prison grounds, in the growing graveyard that consisted of the corpses of people Merle had mostly despised. "Spent enough time behind bars, Darylena, and now you want to lay me to rest – rest! Huh! – in this dump? Next to those mighty fine sheeple you like to consider friends? Jesus, bad enough that I got taken down by a one-eyed man, last thing I want is to lie round where people are gonna be singing Kumbaya!"

After putting down the walker that had once been Merle, Daryl had lingered at the grain store for a while, trying and failing to pull himself together. Every time he thought he had it done, a massive spout of emotion would come gushing up from inside, overwhelming and crippling, and he would find himself gasping and helpless on the ground. After a while the stray walkers started getting too interested, after all he and Merle were the freshest things around, and he'd had to start killing walkers to keep himself alive and Merle's body somewhat intact.

He'd driven the car Merle had "liberated" over to the body and loaded it onto the back seat, then driven away along the highway, foot down, music blaring, and his free hand around the neck of a bottle of Jack, crossbow on the front seat beside him. He'd stopped at the prison long enough to pick up a shovel and deter Rick from joining him. Merle would have cut Daryl's balls off before he'd let him have "Officer Friendly" help out at his burial.

After driving some distance from the prison, Daryl laid the body on a tarp from the trunk, and dragged it into the woods surrounding the correctional facility. In a sunny clearing, he buried Merle beneath a large old white oak, out away from the roots, and tamped the soil down hard. The digging was cathartic and afterwards he felt light and hollow, staring-eyed, as if he had been walking for days on low rations. He took out his small knife and carefully carved "Merle Dixon" into the bark of the tree at about eye level, adding Merle's birthdate just below the name. He liked the idea that maybe in about a hundred years someone might come by and wonder who the hell Merle Dixon was.

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	2. Chapter 2

**Heartwood chapter 2**

**Many thanks to my (so far) lone reviewer vickih. Guess everyone else is partying for New Year!**

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Perhaps a week afterwards, Daryl found himself coming back through the clearing while heading home to the prison. There had been heavy rain the night before and although the open space was dry and sunny, other parts of the woods were still muddy and damp. He had no fool notion of standing round there talking to Merle – hell, he could talk to Merle in his head any time he wanted, and was damn good at imagining Merle's responses. The clearing just happened to be along his route.

As Daryl passed through, the carving on the oak tree caught his eye. Underneath the date, something had been added. He walked over and traced the lettering with his forefinger.

_Semper Fi._

He didn't know who the hell would have carved _that_ there.

He waited for feelings of outrage to well up at someone else having altered Merle's memorial, but strangely, he felt little. The comment seemed fairly fitting given that Merle had been in the Marines. And maybe he hadn't, really, been "always faithful", but Daryl knew without a doubt that Merle's over-riding motivation for the last year, apart from not getting bitten by those creepy freaks, was to find his baby bro.

Intrigued, Daryl scouted the clearing looking for tracks, but apart from his own size elevens there was nothing to be seen. He moved out and tracked carefully back and forth along the couple of paths that led through the area, with no luck. Any prints had been turned mushy and unidentifiable by the overnight deluge, and due to the terrain the distance between them gave no clear indication of stride length. Casting further out, he finally came across a half print he knew to be Rick's, but that didn't prove anything. It was far enough away from the glade to simply be a print left by Rick walking through the woods.

Daryl said nothing to the group about it that night at dinner. He wasn't about to get into it with them, and wasn't interested in going through the usual horseshit that talk of Merle provoked.

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	3. Chapter 3

**Heartwood Chapter 3**

**Thanks to my MB Buster's Jezebel for encouraging me (polite word for nagging ha ha!) to get Heartwood published. It's a bit different from my usual kind of story; no smut for starters!**

**I had an author's note at the start of Chapter 1 but for some reason it didn't make it onto the site so here goes… I was pissed off at AMC not only for killing off Merle, one of THE most interesting characters in the show, and one they could have done a lot with, but also for the lack of response from Daryl. One of THE major story arcs for their most popular character (he and his brother wanting to get back together again – their trials and tribulations when they do), and aside from the walker!Merle scene they brush off his brother's death with a couple of off-hand comments. "Merle never did nuthin like that in his life before" and "I'm just tired of losing people". WTF?**

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Daryl passed through the clearing again a short time later and the tree looked much the same, but within a few days some more words had appeared.

_He went down fighting_

These had clearly been cut into the tree by someone other than the Latin-quoter. The writing was different and the quality of the carving cruder, maybe done by someone with less experience in using a knife. There was a long upsweep on the first vertical of the "H", as if the starting cut had got away from the maker – perhaps someone carving at the top of their reach, with the lack of control that resulted.

Daryl looked carefully around the base of the tree. Grass had been trampled down in a couple of spots, and as he moved around he came across several small prints. _Carl_. If the proportions of length to depth of the prints had not been enough to tell him they belonged to the junior Grimes, the distinctive wavy patterns of the soles of Carl's boots were a dead giveaway. Hell, even soy-latte Andrea could have tracked those.

Daryl didn't know how Carl had disappeared without being missed for the couple of hours it would have taken for the return trip between prison and glade, or even how the hell Carl knew where it was, but he never stayed in the house anyway so why expect him to stay in the Big House?

"He went down fighting." Carl's choice of words really showed where his priorities lay.

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	4. Chapter 4

**Heartwood Chapter 4**

**OK It starts getting a bit AU here with regard to Woodbury/The Governor. It's not central to the story so I have just made fleeting references to them. Assume the Gov is dead and the prison have an uneasy détente with the remaining citizens of Woodbury. **

**The research for this chapter was fun. Makes me realise how lazy the writers were being, constantly having Daryl bringing back squirrel, when there is so much other edible flora and fauna in Georgia. (And tastier than owls!). **

**NB I know that in the US jam is called jelly, but to my Kiwi ears that just sounds too weird; here (and in most other English speaking parts of the world) jelly is what you have for dessert! (ie "jello"). So to any American cultural imperialists - just deal with it!**

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The winds were starting to turn icy now and Daryl wore a sleeved jacket under his angel-wing vest when he was away from the prison. Out of the wind, the sun still held some warmth, and at midday it was pleasant to find a sunny spot in the yard to eat lunch. Only last week, the women had gone on an expedition to the woods to pick over a late raspberry patch, still fruiting in a sheltered sunlit corner.

The Greene girls had used the last of the sugar to cook the berries up into preserves, bottling them into old jars found on a midden near the prison kitchen. He was surprised to find that feisty Maggie Greene had those Martha Stewart skills, an area of expertise that was mostly Carol's province, but he had seen her testing the set, and blowing on the wooden spoon before sampling the hot jam, until the women had shooed him out of the kitchen for swiping a taste of the jam on the saucer as it cooled.

The conserve would be a taste of summer for them, once winter began to bite. Carol had been trying her hand at sourdough, and the breakfast biscuits had rapidly improved from her first batch. Too bad there was no butter, but the berry jam was a tasty addition.

When it came to additions, Daryl guessed it was one of the women who had made the latest one to the tributes on the old white oak near Merle's grave.

Apart from Daryl, the women were the only ones that had left the prison in the last couple of weeks, and the berry dell wasn't too far from the tree. Not real sensible of any of the women to be going off alone away from the foraging group, even now that the threat of the Governor had finally been eradicated. But if Daryl had learned one thing about women in his knockabout life, it was that you didn't try to tell them they couldn't do something, if the reason finally boiled down to "because you're a woman". That was a recipe for cold shoulders, cold coffee and no berry jam.

_He loved his brother._

There it was, a bone-deep fact about Merle, chiselled neatly and carefully into the bark of the oak, the letters simple and tidy, the phrase spaced an even distance from Carl's carving.

Daryl didn't bother looking for tracks this time, but his money was on Carol. He doubted Maggie would have anything good to say about Merle, given how they met and the events soon after, and Beth had barely known him. Michonne's dealings with Merle seemed like they had mostly been abrasive - that was Merle for you – yet each had had an underlying respect for the other's fighting skills. Daryl thought if Michonne ever felt the urge to make some permanent comment on Merle's character, it would be something more surprising and left-field.

_He loved his brother._

It seemed like the sort of thing Carol would value.

And it couldn't be more true.

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**Everbearing raspberries have two fruiting seasons, one in summer and one in autumn (fall). For the purposes of this story, I have assumed that they have found a patch of everbearing raspberries. Raspberries do indeed grow in Georgia; whether the best variety of raspberries for Georgia conditions is an everbearing sort… I don't know!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Heartwood Chapter Five**

**To re-iterate, it's a bit AU here with regard to Woodbury/The Governor. It's not central to the story so I have just made fleeting references to them. Assume the Gov is dead and the prison have an uneasy détente with the remaining citizens of Woodbury.**

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Fuckin Martinez!

Daryl had found bear sign, the distinctive large piles of spoor unmistakeable, and had been following the bear's tracks and tree scrapes through the woods for hours. He'd never taken on a bear Before, considering it wiser to leave them alone, and anyway what the hell was he going to do with three hundred pounds of bear meat. But now, in the middle of an apocalypse, that would provide months of food if the meat could be preserved. Jerky was a possibility, although slicing up hundreds of pounds of meat thin enough for jerky would require every hand they had. Smoking or curing would probably work pretty well, and no doubt Herschel would have some ideas on that. Plenty of hickory around for firing up a smoker, and they could collect hickory nuts while they were at it. And the bearskin would come in handy to ease winter's chill.

It was kinda unusual for a black bear to be found in this area, but not unheard of, given that young bears would range in search of food, or to find their own turf. Daryl had even heard of them appearing in the outskirts of Atlanta from time to time.

The main problem was going to be whether he would be able to get close enough to the bear to get a decent shot into a major organ. Daryl really didn't want to have to chase down a wounded, bleeding angry bear for miles with a crossbow bolt sticking out of its ass, and he knew they could take off and run a long long way before bleeding out. That would give him a secondary issue; how to get the meat back to the prison. It wasn't like a deer that he could field-dress and drag back himself. And there was always the chance that walkers would come across his bear and devour it before he could get back to it with a truck and some helping hands.

Right now the conditions were perfect for coming up on the bear: they were only about an hour's hike from the prison, and if it kept travelling in the same direction it was currently headed, he'd be downwind of it. They didn't see too well but bears had a real sharp sense of smell.

Hmmph. Darn thing had stopped to scratch one of the trees ringing Merle's clearing. Looked like it was marking its territory. If Daryl didn't manage to take it down today, he might get other chances since that indicated the bear was going to stick around. In the meantime he'd have to warn the others to keep out of the woods. They might be able to kill walkers but he doubted anyone else in the group would know how to tackle a bear, and black bears had occasionally been known to kill and eat humans.

Automatically Daryl turned to take a look at the memorial tree.

Seemed like it had become the trend round here for everyone to have their say. Avoiding walking on the shorter grass that was the only indication of the actual grave, Daryl made his way over to see the latest carving that had been added. The others were already a little weathered, but this one stood out due to the rawness of the exposed inner bark.

_1 tough sumbitch_

Daryl snorted a little and fingered the words. Okay, that was a little bit different. True, because _tough_ was pretty much one of the first words that sprang to mind when defining Merle, along with a whole load of other, less flattering, descriptions. But not the kind of thing he would have expected anyone at the prison to have put there. Michonne? Nah. She would have put "son of a bitch", if anything. And the quality of the carving was better than any of the previous inscriptions except his own; clearly done by someone used to working with their hands.

He brushed his thumb up and down the stroke of the "h", then stepped back to scan the markings.

_Semper fi_

_He went down fighting_

_He loved his brother_

_1 tough sumbitch_

It wasn't what he'd intended when he'd put Merle's name and birthdate on the tree, but it was beginning to form an apt picture of Merle.

Daryl scouted around for any trace of evidence as to who had put the latest tribute there. His own boots had trampled over any prints directly in front of the tree, but the conditions were good for preserving footprints elsewhere. The grass around the oak was crushed down in a manner that did not yield any useful information, but on the path leading into the glade he found a patch of dirt with a clear bootprint.

It did not belong to anyone from the prison.

Daryl knew every one of their tracks, barefoot or shod, and this did not fit any of them. Immediately his hackles went up. Someone who knew Merle, but was not part of their group? That could only mean one thing: Woodbury. And despite the current truce, if someone from Woodbury was skulking around in the woods this close to the prison, they were potentially a much greater danger than a damn bear.

Daryl crouched down, instinctively unslinging his crossbow from his shoulder, his eyes narrow, as he took a closer look at the track. It seemed very slightly familiar, but the only time he had observed the tracks of any of the Woodbury residents was at the meet with the Governor at the grain silos. The Governor was dead, and so was his butler, sorry, _advisor._

That only left one possibility.

Fuckin _Martinez._

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	6. Chapter 6

**Heartwood Chapter 6**

**Seems like people enjoyed seeing Martinez again (I know I certainly did). It's a pity that in the show he was so unwary as to turn his back on "One-Eye Bri". **

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The thin crust of snow crunched under Daryl's boots as he trod wearily through the trees. In a book he'd read as a kid, about some pioneer chick and her family, they'd been snowed in so heavily it was warm; the house was blanketed by snow up to the eaves. But right here, right now, in this part of the state of Georgia, there was just enough of the damn stuff for it to be a nuisance, and to reflect a black bitter cold that cut through you like a thin blade.

Daryl wore nearly every layer of clothing known to man. He'd liberated a pair of old soft long-johns, the oft-washed wool soft against his skin. One of the women had tossed him a dark blue sleeveless undershirt as a joke, saying "this camisole looks about your size Daryl". It had been made for a real big-tittied woman and did indeed fit around his chest, and despite the joke, once he'd realised that that it was silk he'd kept it. He'd never bothered to remove the lace trim which was tattered and torn now, the white of the long-johns showing through underneath. Over the silk was a battered grey T-shirt, then a faded red and blue flannel shirt. It was so cold that Daryl had that buttoned up. The angel-wing vest came next, topped with a warm lined jacket. His poncho protected his back from the icy gusts, but he kept the fronts flung back over his shoulders, to keep a little something in reserve for when he took a short break soon.

His cargoes were so worn it was impossible to say what colour they had originally been, but grey was a fair bet. He had made the Indian leggings he sported over them, from braintanned deerhide. When one of the kids had shown off the Davy Crockett 'coonskin cap they had found, he'd cast covetous eyes at it, but determined that to borrow and wear it would make him too much of a walking cliché. He settled instead for a simple knitted hat and muffler. Needing to be able to use his hands at all times, a pair of fingerless gloves with leather palms completed his outfit.

As always when outside the prison, he carried a handgun, several knives besides his buck knife, and the crossbow slung over his shoulder.

He was cold, tired and hungry, and welcomed the chance to take a short rest, flipping his poncho front down and subsiding in a crouch with his back against Merle's tree, ignoring for now the small torn sheet of paper that someone had pegged to it with a splinter of wood. Game had been scarce; he had seen little, tried for less, and had missed what he'd tried at. Thankfully they had plenty of bear meat smoked, or brined in barrels, at the prison. They'd been able to get a full two-thirds of the downed bear butchered and loaded onto a pickup before a herd had come through and they'd had to bug-out leaving the rest of the bear to the walkers.

Merle'd had an expression, that he was so hungry he "could eat a bear without salt", and that was how Daryl felt right now, having not eaten since his breakfast of a granola bar. He dreamed of Merle from time to time, and always awoke feeling disjointed and out of sorts. The ones where Merle was a walker weren't even the worst really, although given that Carol had woken him up a coupla times by tugging gently on his foot, well out of striking range, it seemed like those were the ones where he made a fuss in his sleep. No, the ones that troubled him more, were the ones that seemed so real, where Merle and he were doing something normal like hunting or fighting, downing a few cold ones while watching the game, or just chewing the fat. And then he awoke to a Merle-sized hole in his life.

Daryl rose from his brief respite, and contemplated asking Mr Johnson, one of the few Woodbury residents who had elected to join them at the prison, to make a seat for folks to sit on here in the glade. Could come in handy if people kept visiting it like they were; lord knows he would've liked to sit down instead of hunkering on the cold snow. Old man Johnson was good with his hands, and had been teaching woodwork to some of the older kids, using the prison workshop. Maybe they could make it some kinda project to keep them out of mischief while mostly stuck inside during the winter.

Turning, Daryl stepped up to the white paper fluttering in the light gusty wind. It had a makeshift peg of wood in the top of it, through the "O" of the page title "John 15", attaching it to the tree. Another smaller splinter, banged into a bottom corner, secured the page further. Verse 13 had been circled with a sharpie. Daryl squinted his eyes against the glare from the snow and read the verse, _"Greater love hath no man than this...that a man lay down his life for his friends."_

Daryl snorted a little. Maybe that woulda been accurate if they'd used that sharpie to cross out "friends" and write in "brother". He doubted Merle had had any friends at the prison. Although… he and Hershel seemed to get along Ok. And Carol, at least, didn't want to kill him. Well, apart from that one time where she'd threatened to cut his throat in his sleep. And he'd seen Beth smiling at Merle once, but had not had time to warn either of them off, before the stupid sumbitch had taken Michonne and headed for the grainstore.

He sighed, took hold of the paper and after pulling out the wooden pegs, stuffed the page into his back pocket. Then, taking out a small sharp knife, he cut the marks "John 13:15" into the bark of the tree, right where the paper had been pinned.

No point in looking for tracks; the snow had taken care of that. But he'd bet it was one of the Greens.

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Later that evening while everyone was at dinner he started checking it out. He made it fast, cos he didn't want anyone catching him going through other people's cells, rifling through their possessions. As it was he nearly got sprung by Beth, when she found him in her cell. He'd already been into Hershel's – his bible lay right beside his bunk, and was too large to be the one the page had been torn out of. In Maggie and Glenn's cell, a sharpie lay on their bedside table amongst the clutter of small tools, hair accessories and keepsakes. In the top drawer he'd found a pocket-sized version of the King James. It was just the right size, but was still intact.

He was in Beth's cell, flipping through the pages of her copy, seeking the right chapter, when she suddenly appeared in the doorframe.

"Something I can help you with Daryl?" Her surprise at finding him in her room was nothing compared to his that he hadn't heard her coming. She was small and light on her feet, but he was normally more alert than that. Guess she'd really taken in his lessons on walking quietly through the woods, and applied them to the prison. Or maybe she'd seen him go into her cell, and decided to see if she could sneak up on him.

Nonchalantly Daryl pointed his chin towards her "_X_ days without an accident" board. "Just came to check out ya board; got sidetracked into looking at the good book." In the meantime he'd flicked through to the relevant chapter and verse, only to find her Bible also still had all its pages.

"I think we're on a record here," she answered softly, and he took a closer look at the board. Sixty-one days without an accident.

"Yeah, well, enjoy it while it lasts, sunshine. Come summer those walkers are gonna git stirred up again and there's always someone dumb enough or unlucky enough to spoil the record."

Beth said nothing for a moment, just gave him a straight look, and Daryl felt a twinge of regret at having spoken to her so pessimistically. He guessed he was just being a realist, but there was no need to burst her bubble.

Beth held out her hand for her Bible and he passed it to her, beginning to ease himself round her to leave the cell. The book that had fitted easily into his palm filled her much smaller hands.

"You know, if you want your own copy, there's a whole stack of these pocket-sized ones in the library," she told him, holding the book up to display it momentarily.

"Well… I ain't much of a reader." Daryl figured that was just a bit nicer than telling her he thought most of it was crap. Although he'd flicked through Revelations once – man he didn't know what drugs the writer of THAT had been on, but he was sure Merle woulda loved to get his hands on them. Anyhow, the author had been proved right when he'd said the dead would rise, but Daryl was pretty sure the God-botherers hadn't expected it to come true in quite such a manner.

He shrugged and made his way back downstairs to scarf down his own dinner of a tasty stew, made of bear meat, wild onions and rehydrated dried carrots. The bear tasted good, but he was pretty sure he'd be tired of it by winter's end – with or without salt.

Afterwards, without a word to anyone, Daryl headed for the library. After some brief poking about, he found the stack of pocket bibles Beth had referred to. He quickly leafed through each one, until he came to a copy about fifth in the stack, which had a torn stump where the relevant page had been.

Daryl threw the book back on the pile, feeling a vague sense of dissatisfaction.

_Hmmph. Coulda been anybody._

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**If anyone doubts that Daryl would wear the silk camisole, just google "Daryl Dixon woman's underwear". And while you're there, check out the fun little fic "Laundry Day" by EntwinedLove. **


	7. Chapter 7

**Heartwood – Author's Note**

**Howdy y'all. Firstly my apologies to those of you who naturally thought this was a new chapter and were squeeing, only to find it is just a lousy author's note…. **

**I am writing to let you know there will be a short wait before the next chapter. I have had a lot of issues with my internet access over the holiday period, and my Word functionality only works if I am on the internet, so it has been hard to get any writing done. My hookup is via T-stick (remote wi-fi) and there is a holiday camp just down the road, I am sure as soon as the holidaymakers have sodded off home my access will improve. Darn those kids who instead of making the most of NZ's (recently voted) best beach, and going swimming and windsurfing and fishing, are instead sitting on their tablets and whatnot and getting on the internet. And blocking the rest of us from doing the same, ha ha. **

**Next chapter is the penultimate chapter, and the final chapter is already written, so there will be no delay on that, once the next one is up. **

**I have greatly enjoyed everyone's reviews; thanks so much to everyone for leaving them. It has been interesting to see people's speculations as to who is leaving what message etc. And some of you have come up with points that never even crossed my mind, so I have really enjoyed that two-way flow of ideas. Shall I let you in on a little secret? In some cases **_**even I**_** don't know who left the message! The Muse just told me what to write! The first one was, actually, Rick. We know about Carl and Martinez of course. I believe that for the one Daryl thinks is Carol, he is right. And as for the most recent chapter (the page from the Bible)… well, my money is on Beth, who is actually more resourceful than some people think. I think the sharpie on the bedside table is just a red herring. **

**Thanks to Surplus Imagination for her (?) info on berries and jam. I needed something that would be available in autumn (fall) so I just googled "berries ripe Georgia fall" and raspberries were what came up. It's so weird to hear Americans saying "canning" when they're talking about putting stuff in glass jars – what the rest of us would call "preserving" or "bottling". Until recently I honestly thought they were putting stuff in cans! It is nice to know the Prison Gang would have lots of yummy things to forage in the woods; Daryl would be able to tell them what was safe to eat – and probably Hershel too. I bet he had to forage occasionally when he was a wild young man. **

**Now, I should mention that this fic was inspired by another, which I would credit if I could remember what it was. It was a longish fic, but had a brief paragraph where Daryl carved Merle's name and dates into a tree. I liked that idea and ran with it. My apologies to the author that I cannot credit it. **

**I look forward to seeing you all again when the next chapter is up. **

**Cheers, What Evil Lurks. **


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